Pensions, Education and Life Expectancy

In a two-period model with agent heterogeneity we analyze a pension reform toward a stronger link between contributions and benefits (as recently observed in several countries) in a pension system with a Bismarckian and a Beveridgian component. We show that such a policy change reduces the educational level in an economy. The life expectancy differential between skilled and unskilled individuals drives this result. Furthermore, we investigate the consequences on the intragenerational redistribution characteristics of the pension system – in the sense of the number of net-recipients relative to net-payers – as well as welfare effects.social security, education, life expectancy, pension reform, redistribution

Competition for the International Pool of Talent: Education Policy and Student Mobility

This paper presents a model of two countries competing for a pool of students from the rest of the world (ROW). In equilibrium, one country offers high educational quality for high tuition fees, while the other country provides a low quality and charges low fees. The quality in the high quality country, the tuition fees, and the quality and tuition fee differential between the countries increase with the income prospects in ROW and the number of international students. Higher stay rates of foreign students lead to more ambiguous results. In particular, an increase in educational quality can be accompanied by a decline in tuition fees. Furthermore, international competition for students can give rise to a brain gain in ROW.Higher education; student mobility; vertical quality dierentiation; return migration; brain gain

Causal Linkages Between Domestic Terrorism and Economic Growth

We use the Hsiao-Granger method to test for growth-terrorism causality for seven Western European countries. In bivariate settings, the impact of economic performance on domestic terrorism is very strong. In trivariate settings, the impact of performance on terrorism diminishes. Here, we find that economic performance leads terrorist violence in robust ways only for three out of seven countries. Terrorism is almost never found to causally influence growth in bivariate and trivariate specifications. Our findings indicate that (i) the role of economic performance in determining terrorist violence appears to have been important for some countries and (ii) all attacked economies have been successful in adjusting to the threat of terrorism.Domestic Terrorism, Growth, Hsiao-Granger Causality, Western Europe

A Note on Brain Gain and Brain Drain: Permanent Migration and Education Policy

In this note, we present a novel channel for a brain gain. Students from a developing country study in a developed host country. A higher permanent migration probability of these students appears to be a brain drain for the developing country in the first place. However, it induces the host country to improve its education quality, as a larger share of the generated benefits accrue in this host country. A higher education quality raises in turn the human capital of the returning students. As long as the permanent migration probability is not too large, this positive effect causes both aggregate and per-capita human capital to increase in the developing country. Thus, a brain gain occurs.brain gain, education policy, human capital, return migration

Competition for the International Pool of Talents : Education Policy with Student Mobility

The paper presents a model of two countries competing for the international pool of talented students from the rest of the world. To relax tuition-fee competition, countries differentiate their education systems in equilibrium. While one country offers high education quality at high charges for students - the most talented ones study in this country - the other one provides lower quality and charges lower tuition fees. The regional quality-differentiation increases with the size of the international pool of talents, with the stay rate of foreign students in the host countries upon graduation and with the degree of development of the sending countries of foreign students. Compared to the welfare-maximizing education-policy, the decentralized solution is likely to imply an inefficient allocation of foreign students to the two host countries, as well as an inefficient quality differentiation.higher education, student mobility, vertical quality differentiation, return migration

SIGNAL: A Ka-band Digital Beam-Forming SAR System Concept to Monitor Topography Variations of Ice Caps and Glaciers

This paper discusses the implementation of an endto- end simulator for the BIOMASS mission. An overview of the system architecture is provided along with a functional description of the modules that comprise the simulator

Statutory Retirement Age and Lifelong Learning

The employability of an aging population in a world of continuous technical change is top of the political agenda. Due to endogenous human capital depreciation, the effective retirement age is often below statutory retirement age resulting in unemployment among older workers. We analyze this phenomenon in a putty-putty human capital vintage model and focus on education and the speed of human capital depreciation. Introducing a two-stage education system with initial schooling and lifelong learning, not even lifelong learning turns out to be capable of aligning economic and statutory retirement. However, lifelong learning can increase the number of people reaching statutory retirement age and hence reduce the problem of old age unemployment in an aging society.lifelong learning, retirement, unemployment, education system